World Environment Day with Boody

The motive is to inspire and engage people to explore nature and the environment around them. To appreciate its beauty and its importance. To think about our relationship with nature and how we depend on, and treat the environment. World environment day encourages everyone to experience nature in a new, exciting way.

To celebrate World Environment Day, we wanted to highlight ways we can have a more sustainable future by using more environmentally friendly materials such as bamboo that can be substituted for many of our everyday products, reducing the pressure on our threatened planet!

Did you know…?

Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on the planet, growing up to 1.2 metres a day?

It’s stronger than steel and reduces soil erosion up to 75%?

It minimises CO2 emissions and generates up to 35% more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees?

Bamboo requires no irrigation?

It’s used to make many household items including clothes, toothbrushes and toilet roll?

Bamboo is rising fast in popularity due to its exceptional qualities. Hailed for being eco-friendly, strong, hypoallergenic and anti-bacterial, it also produces oxygen, controls soil erosion, provides organic matter, regulates water levels in watersheds, conserves biodiversity, beautifies the landscape and essentially contributes to the purification and regulation of the environment.

According to the CEF (conserve energy future) – “if the current rate of deforestation continues, it will take less than 100 years to destroy all the rainforests on the earth.” But Bamboo can help avoid deforestation, as they are the fastest growing plants on the planet with a growth rate of up to 1.2m a day. Bamboo is stronger than steel and its root can reduce soil erosion by up to 75%. Compared with traditional hardwoods, that can take up to 20-120 years to reach full maturity, bamboo only takes 3 years! Yet the strength and hardness of bamboo is equivalent to hardwood timber, and costs are comparable.

The World Resources Institute also calculates that “loss of forests contributes between 12% and 17% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions.” Bamboo’s extreme growth minimises CO2 and generates up to 35% more oxygen than equivalent stands of trees. One acre of bamboo sequesters 150 tons of carbon dioxide per year while one acre of young forest only sequesters 45 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Can you see what we’re getting at here?!

As for water usage, it can take more than 5,000 gallons of water to produce just over 2 pounds of cotton and 73% of the global cotton harvest comes from irrigated land. Bamboo on the other hand requires only 130 gallons of water to produce 3 pounds and requires no irrigation at all.

Not only can bamboo be one of the quickest ways to remove vast amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere. It can play a significant role in linking climate mitigation to sustainable economic development in the developing world. Bamboo nursery owners can make a good living on remarkably little land. It can help reduce poverty and protect the environment and it provides a practical and rapid solution for some of the natural resource and poverty challenges facing many underdeveloped countries today.

Bamboo is used in construction, skincare, fashion, makes charcoal, pulp, boards, furniture, utensils, matchsticks, toothpicks and crafts and has high resistance and insulation qualities.

Ever tried bamboo clothing? Boody Organic Bamboo clothing is softer than your average fabric and better for your skin! Anti-bacterial properties, odour free and hypoallergenic, it’s perfect choice for those with skin conditions like eczema. It will not lose its silky touch after washing either, lasting much longer than your cotton undies. Studies by the Japanese Textile Inspection Association, found that the soft and stretchy qualities of bamboo were maintained even after 50 washings of Bamboo fabric. From £14. www.boody.co.uk

Boody produces clothing by using 3D computerised knitting which leaves zero waste! The factories also operate with zero waste, while using a closed loop system to not waste any water. Packing is made from already recycled materials and any printing uses vegetable based ink.